when it comes up
i brace myself
take a deep breath
and call myself an artist.

as a way of being FOR art
FOR a tradition of willful (rather than submissive) practices – that I am not ready to give up on.
being the most artist that I can be
which is to be free and connected and alert and part of a conscious shaping force of the whole ecology of ideas, beings and things.

re-claiming art now
and using my elbows the best I can to make some space for future art freedoms

i see the encroaching marketization of everything and I refuse to run
and risk loosing touch with the values and process that have shaped me, enriched my world

art continues to generate more ways to be and see myself together with others
i want to keep collaborating with others to create and artify the world.

corporations are running out of land and mineral and energy resources to exploit
now they are moving into us, inside us, mining our insides
“creativity” (as an alternative to art) does not provide a safe haven from corporatisation.

so i am for art that is critical, indigestible, eloquent, indescribable, shapeshifting, cross-realmish, inter-connected, awkward, lumpy, unmanageable, critical- and networks give us a great way to do this together.

– 2012 – as part of a discussion on the Netbehaviour email discussion list about the difficulties of admitting to be being an artist in the current context. http://www.furtherfield.org/netbehaviour/worries-about-blacklists